New 5K Honors Sandy Hook Teacher Vicki Soto

Organizers encouraging runners to come dressed as her favorite animal, the flamingo.

The family of Vicki Soto, a teacher killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting last year, is hosting the first annual Vicki Soto 5K on November 2 to raise money for a scholarship fund in her name.

The race will travel the waterfront of the Lordship section of Stratford, Connecticut, Soto’s hometown. Proceeds from the event will go to the Vicki Soto Memorial Fund, a scholarship program for students entering the field of education.

Soto was one of six school employees who died during the December 14 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, which also took the lives of 20 children. The 27-year-old, first-grade teacher was shot while attempting to shield her students from the gunman.

As part of the tribute to Soto, organizers are encouraging runners to come dressed as her favorite animal, the flamingo.

“We thought, the event is Nov. 2, shortly after Halloween, it might be fun to kind of incorporate anyone that wants to run in a flamingo costume,” Jim Wiltsie, Soto’s cousin and the event’s organizer, told WCBS.

The entrance fee is $26, in remembrance of the 26 lives that were taken. More than 800 people are currently registered. The field is capped at 1,200.

“It’s the first annual Vicki Soto 5K, but we’re hoping it will blossom into many, many more years to come to sustain that fund to keep giving back to the students that want to go into education,” Wiltsie told CBS New York.